In a January 2007 paper “Driving Operational Innovation Using Lean Six Sigma,” the IBM Institute for Business Value argued that Lean Six Sigma can do more than help achieve operational excellence through improving processes: Lean Six Sigma can . . . help leaders discover innovation opportunities far beyond operations, enhance financial performance, and create organizations…
A recent article in the Booze Allen Hamilton strategy magazine Strategy+Business provided the following anecdote: In 1999, the appliance maker Whirlpool announced an initiative to generate innovation “from everywhere and everyone” in the company. Faced with a stagnant market, Whirlpool managers wanted fresh ideas from the company’s 68,000 employees. They got them. Before long there…
I recently blogged about Idea Management Systems, noting some of the key issues in the design and implementation of Idea Management Systems. These points and the central importance of a well designed Idea Management Systems are reinforced in a recent Business Week article by Jeneanne Rae, which suggests that: In the annals of corporate innovation…
A Price Waterhouse Coopers Innovation Survey of the “most senior people in the Times Top 1000 companies” found that the top performing 20% of companies responding collected and turned ideas into action through “well defined idea management processes” (an Idea Management System) that seek and gather ideas and knowledge widely from customers, suppliers, employees, other…
Booze Allen Hamilton’s second annual report on the returns from the world’s 1000 largest R&D budgets reinforces the finding from the 2005 report: that there is no simple or direct correlation between the R&D budget and the business value delivered by innovation. The 2006 report identifies a group of 94 “high leverage innovators” that consistently…
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